Scientific perspective on the rate of spread of trends like PPAP 'Pineapple pen - apple pen'

The Memetics theory of biologist Richard Dawkins will help us better understand the culture of the Internet, where things . bullshit like the PPAP movement (Pineapple Pen - pen) is spread every day.

If you take a hard time surfing Facebook for a few days now, it is not difficult for you to come across a video that is somewhat bullshit but extremely catchy, making yourself rewind many times. That's the PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen) trend - roughly translated: Pineapple pen - pen.

This piece of music haunts strangely, like jumping from one man's brain to another, spreading throughout social media with tens of millions of views after just a few hours. And then after that . flooded with inventions.

People race to like, share or retweet it without any reason.

This is similar when something is spread on the Internet. People race to like, share or retweet it without any reason. All those things, including photos, videos . they are called meme.

Every year, there are a few social networking phenomena, they are meme

Thanks to sharing so many times on the Internet, Grumpy Cat's scary photo of the cat was said to be the "most wonderful Internet achievement" of 2013.

Grumpy cat - the cat with the charisma still very viral until today.

In 2014, it was the Ice Bucket Challenge videos that became famous, helping the ALS association donate up to 100 million USD (over 2.230 billion VND) to the victims with sclerosis on one side.

If you look a little further, think of Gangnam Style - a song that is also considered . humble but can reach 1 billion views on YouTube.

Gangnam Style - the song is also considered to be a little . but it can hit 1 billion views on YouTube.

All of the above, they are called meme. But what makes meme spread? According to scientists, the reason lies in a theory that has been around for a long time and . has nothing to do with the Internet: Theory of memetics.

Meme appears based on "genetic genes".

Meme today can be interpreted as a cultural element or a system of behaviors transmitted from one individual to another, usually through imitation.

But the real concept of meme was introduced by biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976, about memetics.

Richard Dawkins - who created the concept of meme.

The theory is stated as follows: like genes are individual blocks containing genetic information, meme is also a similar block, but contains information about culture.

Like the eyes of the parents passed on to the child. When A person imitates person B, the cultural information of person B will be transmitted to person A, or in other words, the meme of person B has been copied by the A.

According to Dawkins, the cultural information here is the ideas, the catchphrases, the melodies, the fashion style, the way to build houses, . or the information is spread (in English). called viral).

Meme is like a gene, can replicate, spread to many generations, and evolve.

The theory of memetics also points out that Meme also prints and evolves as genes . They compete to be accepted and not controlled by any individual, meaning anyone can copy the cultural information of the meme.

The more useful memes are, the more needs or tastes that can be spread.

Meme includes many types

One of them is Internet meme - the video, the processing is spread on the network every day. The rest is a meme that carries high-applicability cultural information, called a science meme.

A typical illustration for scientific meme is the old spokes wheel. One person has the idea of ​​spokes to make a trolley with a spokes wheel attached. Others see this type of vehicle will create millions of other cars. This is called the wheel spokes meme because the method of making this wheel has been copied by many people, and because it is spread very quickly.

Currently, people are only interested in so-called Internet meme.

Nowadays, people are only interested in so-called Internet meme , and the competition of these meme is very high.

The reason is because the Internet is now too universal, helping people to access many different streams of information. Thereby, which information is less useful, long-term, in other words . light, will of course be less spread.

Factors that help a meme share a lot

The old and present Meme is certainly different, because the nature of their origin is different. However, researchers believe that they are closely related, with the following common characteristics:

That's because if the meme is really useful , it will spread as easily as in the case of spokes. In meme today, it's educational videos, inventions, breakthrough innovations .

Videos by Ted-ed - an American educational website that is always viral.

Second, meme is easy to copy always has an advantage . It is not unjust that the trends are considered "bullshit" like PPAP and Gangnam Style make the netizens crazy. Ear-catching music, short, simple humorous lines have turned them into network phenomena.

It is not unjust that the trends are considered "bullshit" like PPAP and Gangnam Style make the netizens crazy.

Finally, meme answers urgent questions often share very quickly. For example, photos, videos of how to lose weight in 5 minutes, or recipes, tips to make life easier to breathe. Those are "urgent" memes .

"The secret to not being bitten by a dog" can also be a strong spelling meme.

Here, you will be curious to know what this long doctrine is for? In fact, experts say that if memetics is well known, we can use meme correctly to increase the effectiveness of advertising, PR Marketing or even campaigning.

Those who have greater spread (according to the positive), they have 50% success.